Ruben Dias has insisted the Community Shield is a final and Manchester City wanted to win it, despite a poor performance in defeat to Arsenal on Sunday.
Arsenal’s 3-0 Community Shield win over Manchester City was warmly welcomed by the Gunners support in Cardiff, but there were the inevitable attempts to play down the silverware on social media afterwards.
Fans of rival clubs cried that it was ‘just a friendly’ and that ‘City didn’t even care about winning it’.
Yet City captain Ruben Dias denied both claims after the game, insisting the Community Shield is a final and City ‘obviously’ wanted to win it.
“Today it’s frustrating, and it’s a final, we obviously want to win it,” Dias told TNT Sports. “But if there’s a lesson to be learned in a final, let it be this one, because there’s a lot more coming.
“[Our performance was] not good enough, frustrating. It’s the beginning of the season, it’s not good enough, many things are changing, obviously a new manager as well.
“Still, the way the game started just sets you off right away, [Arsenal] get comfortable in playing their game. But in the end, as well, this is just the start, and the most important is that we’re already looking forward.”
With that cleared up, Enzo Maresca now has the rather dubious ‘achievement’ of suffering the joint-heaviest defeat of any Manchester City manager in their first game in charge.
BBC Sport report that the only previous time a City manager lost by three or more goals in their first game was Harry Newbould in 1906, which was a 4-1 defeat – also to Arsenal.
Maresca will hope to avoid also matching Newbould’s second result, which was a 9-1 loss to Everton. City face Bournemouth at home on Sunday in their first Premier League fixture of the new campaign.
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